Daily Archives: 27/06/2012

The Real Texas is an action adventure game that plays like a mashup of Zelda: Link to the Past and Ultima VI.
Sam, an ordinary Texas rancher, is on holiday in England when he falls into a blue portal and lands in The Strange Texas.

While holidaying in England, an ordinary rancher from Texas is trapped in an abandoned castle. There he finds a portal to a town called Strange, whose residents are somehow all stuck in a purgatory dimension of Texas.

Trailer

The Real Texas is an epic action RPG with gun combat, lots of secret items and areas, NPC day/night cycles, bosses, puzzles, dungeons, zombies and cross-dressing.
In development for 5 years, The Real Texas was first launched two weeks ago and has been received very positively by a small audience. This has allowed for bugs and compatibility issues to be resolved.
With the release this week of the version 1.2 the game is definitely ready for a large audience.

The Real Texas FAQWhat is the game like? Is it more exploration or more shooting?
It’s a pretty even balance between exploration/problem solving, and shooting/dungeons. There are no standard fetch quests or the like but the NPCs in the game all play a part in the unfolding of the story. You can open drawers or other furniture in peoples’ houses, search things, store your items wherever you like or drop them on the ground– a full inventory system.
You can interact with most objects, whether they do something or not, and NPCs have conversation trees as well as a day-and-night cycle. The game itself takes place in a fairly “local” area, so exploration is more focused on gradually unlocking new places or connecting them together rather than travelling to whole other towns. There’s only one town in the game but it’s really detailed.
There is also a keyword system, which is used for trying out secret actions you might have thought of, or mentioning certain key phrases to NPCs. It’s definitely not a text adventure game where you have to type very often, but it’s super fun to figure out a secret topic to mention to somebody, and hear what they have to say. Typing in keywords is a comparatively minor part of the game, though.

How do the shooty parts play?
It’s something of a new mechanic; at least I’m not aware of any games that work exactly the same way. Check out some of the other gameplay videos to get a sense for this (more coming soon, too.)
he core idea is that you aim with the mouse, and walk with WASD (or JIKL if you are left-handed.)
You can’t move and aim at the same time, and there isn’t rapid fire per se. Instead, you press SPACEBAR (or the right mouse button) to draw your gun, and then the left mouse button to shoot.
Rather than base gameplay around stats (e.g., hit points) you have to manouevre strategically to avoid being shot or have other damaging effects placed on you. Most effects are short-lived but fairly severe, so it can be frantic to try and recover. Most enemies do not have simple attacks, but combine different effects to make your life difficult. Now, there’s nothing wrong with stats such as hit points, damage modifiers, etc.; it’s just that The Real Texas is more focused on novel mechanics than on stats.
There are a handful of weapons which all work very differently. Likewise there are lots of helpful items with very different effects. Because some of the effects you encounter are so severe, these items can make a huge difference depending on the situation. But I’m not going to spoil anything here.
The mechanics are genuinely pretty novel and I hope you will enjoy it!

Are there bosses/dungeons?
Yes and yes. The game is an action RPG and can be pretty challenging in places.
Remember there are no hit points in the game. Think about what the implications are here for boss battles. Every boss is highly unique; I’m not saying one hit kills every boss, but they all work quite differently to one another. I worked really hard to make the boss-encounters unique.

Note for Linux Users: Right now, only a i386 (32bit) package is available. This was a major oversight on my part, I will build a 64 bit package ASAP. At that time I will also make available a .tar.gz package for non-debian-based distros. If you run 64 bit Linux, you may want to hold off purchasing although it is possible to get the game to run.

About Kitty Lambda
Kitty Lambda is an independent studio based in Calgary, Alberta.
Calvin French is the main person behind The Real Texas.
Music is by Yesso of Lumental Inc.